45 Colt Questions

[sgt.mike]

sorry ever posted

[j_dude77]

The answer to #1 is maybe. You would have other problems with .444 diameter bullet besides expansion. There would probably not be enough neck tension to hold the bullet. If it is that undersized it would just fall into the case.

#2 yes you could, but you would be working the **** out of the brass. The diameter of the 45 acp is .473 and the colt is .480.

[littlejack]

sgt. mike:
Your mold will not work, the diameter is too small. That mold was not made for the 45 Colt cartridge. You need to be dropping boolits larger, or at least the same size as the throats. You also need to slug the bore and match the throats (ream) to the bore size. You will need to size and lube the boolits to throat size, or +, to seal and to fit the bore. Hopefully the bore is .452.
I only neck size my 45 Colt brass, but I use a Lee carbide 45 Colt die.
Regards
Jack

[mazo kid]

It sounds to me like you have a Lee R.E.A.L. mold made for a 50 caliber muzzle loader. They are made under size to slide easily down the bore and then expand on firing to engage the rifling. Just my 2 cents worth.

[Silver Jack Hammer]

I neck resized only in .45 Colt in the Colt SAA, these re-loads do not chamber in my Ruger BH new model. Rugers have tighter chambers so I suggest you plan on full length resizing. In my Ruger 7.0 gr of Red Dot throws a Lyman 452374 at 860 fps, ww alloy. For American Select I have only tested the 454190, 5.7 gr gives 887 fps. The American Select performs better with light boolits.

You will only be satisfied with a first class quality re-sizing die made for the .45 Colt. I'd shop for a quality mold too. Life is too short to shoot ugly boolits or kiss an ugly girl.

[Tatume]

Hi Mike,

Lee used to ship 45 ACP sizing dies with their 454 Casull die sets. The reason, they said, was because the ACP dies size the case to a smaller diameter, and the additional bullet pull so achieved was needed to properly ignite large charges of slow burning powder. Brian Pierce once wrote the same thing, and I respect the opinions of that gentleman. That said, you probably do not need the ACP die for your 45 Colt ammo, and it will wear out your cases sooner. It may also reduce the diameter of your cast bullets to such a degree that accuracy may suffer. As others have already said, I recommend that you get a correct 45 Colt sizing die.

Take care, Tom

[DougGuy]

Agreed. Not only do you need a good crimp for the .45 Colt, but it needs neck tension on the boolit as well. That is actually more important than the crimp. Lee makes a FC die for .45 Colt that has a carbide resizing ring in the bottom which in some cases will swage the boolit diameter down as it resizes the loaded round, so avoid using this die if it does that.

[shorty500M]

the .444 dia. On bullets cast from that mold sounds peculiar. Have the .45-298g hollow base mold on hand from a judge/governor/contender .45/.410 project me and a buddy worked on. The theory was a long, oversize moderately soft hollow base slug to fill up the oversize and long throats in those guns. Our mold dropped @ .456. Maybe quality issue with your mold

[joec]

Agreed. Not only do you need a good crimp for the .45 Colt, but it needs neck tension on the boolit as well. That is actually more important than the crimp. Lee makes a FC die for .45 Colt that has a carbide resizing ring in the bottom which in some cases will swage the boolit diameter down as it resizes the loaded round, so avoid using this die if it does that.

I got my FCD from Ranch Dog when he was in business however they are sold here also http://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/1216/1 (http://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/1216/1)I prefer these to the standard Lee FCD dies for 45 Colt and they are basically the same as the Rifle FCD.

[Grapeshot]

Several questions on reloading for this caliber. Little background first I have american select, Bullseye, and Red Dot on hand. Unique is durn near impossiable to find here in my local right now. My Ruger Blackwak throat is .452"

Question 1 I picked up the Lee 298gr (.450) Hollow base mold in El Paso Tx while I was TDY thinking the .002 would not be a issue. Turns out the dia as cast is .444" under a reasonable load casted out of range lead will the HB expand (looking for opinions and thought here too many variables to state exacting). also looking for suggested Loads here I was thinking 5 gr of red-dot.


What you have is a mold for a MUZZLE LOADING .45 caliber rifle. The bore of most ML rifles (That's land to land) is .445 and the groove to groove is .452 to .454

[rintinglen]

Question No.2 heck yes. Did it for years . Simply adjust your .45 ACP die so the the Primer removal pin sticks out enough to knock out the primers and resize to the depth of your boolit's base when seated. A smidge deeper won't hurt. You can use the ACP or the Long Colt expander die and the Long colt seat and crimp die. And you'll be good to go. Your brass may die a bit sooner, but annealing your cases every 5 loadings will go a long ways to stopping that.

[pdawg_shooter]

The answer to #1 is maybe. You would have other problems with .444 diameter bullet besides expansion. There would probably not be enough neck tension to hold the bullet. If it is that undersized it would just fall into the case.

#2 yes you could, but you would be working the **** out of the brass. The diameter of the 45 acp is .473 and the colt is .480.

Or... you could wrap the .444 bullet with 2 wraps of 16# printer paper and end up with .454. A bit more work but eliminates the chance of leading and allows you to load up to get jacketed performance.